Litigation Release No. 20955 / March 13, 2009

ATTORNEY CHARGED IN STOCK MANIPULATION SCHEME

The Department of Justice announced today that it filed criminal charges against Texas securities lawyer Phillip W. Offill, Jr. in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Department of Justice charged Offill with one count of conspiracy to evade securities registration and to commit securities and wire fraud, and nine counts of wire fraud. According to the criminal indictment, Offill evaded the securities registration requirements and participated in a "pump-and-dump" scheme to issue shares to the public illegally and to manipulate the trading price and volume by making materially false and misleading statements in press releases and in spam e-mail messages.

The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier named Offill in two civil injunctive actions currently pending in federal district courts in Michigan and Texas. In the actions, described below, the Commission alleged that Offill violated the registration provisions of the securities laws:

On June 14, 2007, the Commission filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan alleging that Offill and Arizona securities attorney David B. Stocker assisted Michigan-based AVL Global, Inc., in a scheme to dump millions of shares of AVL Global stock into the marketplace without any public disclosure of the company's failing operations.

On September 26, 2007, the Commission filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas alleging that Offill, Stocker, four other individuals, and five entities engaged in a scheme to evade the registration requirements of the federal securities laws in connection with their sales of shares of six public companies.

The Commission seeks to enjoin Offill from future violations of the securities laws, disgorgement of Offill's ill-gotten gains with pre-judgment interest, civil penalties, and to bar Offill from participating in future offerings of penny stock.